Mark Porter started his professional career as Director of Marketing at the nation's largest cataloger of software tools at the time. In that capacity, and later as General Manager, the company grew exponentially and completed a successful IPO. In 1991, Porter left to start the industry's first mail-order shopping club, which included the first commercial on-line ordering system. The company was later merged into a leading software direct marketing firm. After a one year stint as Vice President, Porter left to start Landmark/httprint. Throughout his career, Porter has purchased tens of millions of dollars in commercial printing and worked with hundreds of printers domestically and internationally. Mark earned a BS in Business from Northeastern University and an MBA from Pepperdine University.

Describe why httprint has shown such strong growth over the last few months. Is it that all the work you did last year is falling through at once?

Yes, we believe that our integrated suite of services is the right blend for this industry and the only way you would know that is if you come from this industry. We were not listed as a "first mover" about a year ago but we always thought of ourselves as a "fast mover" – that is, a company from within the industry showing up with the right blend of services being the first to actually gain significant traction. Our full service production management not only is a source of revenue; it is a direct line into the customer to introduce our ecommerce solution. Our experts also help the customer understand their print spend before introducing the ecommerce tools. Otherwise you take an already confusing picture and simply introduce another variable. Most people barely have a handle on their print spend to begin with, simply giving them some software doesn’t begin to address the problems. Httprint is the only company offering an ecommerce solution for the industry that has all of these components. Our exploding revenues are the only measure we look at to judge whether or not we have the right mix.

Can you continue to gain market share at the same pace that you have started with?

I don’t think we’ll grow 1300% per year and if I did I don’t think I’d be CEO very long but we should continue to ramp at a fairly robust pace. This could of course be fuelled even further through acquisitions, which are certainly part of our strategy.

Will companies look to e-commerce players like httprint to leverage an economic downturn?

On the one hand you can say that in downturns companies are looking for savings and bring in lots of consultants to find those savings. At the same time, ecommerce efficiencies are still rather young and the upfront expense for the future savings can be a tough sell. We believe that while it may be a longer sales cycle for those reasons that ultimately we can show a customer where the savings come from in a very tangible way. Once the ROI becomes clear the decision to go ahead isn’t far behind. Since we also offer production management outsourcing which is a much more time-tested method of savings, we have another avenue into an organization that can help them immediately. Our entire focus is on helping organizations save money, usually greater than 20% of their overall print spend, and that resonates in this type of economic downturn.

Have you hired any executives from other e-commerce providers?

We have hired people laid off from PrintCafe and Digeno but so far no others. We try to hire the best person possible, whether or not they worked at one of our competitors is not necessarily positive or negative.

What is your take on other e-solution providers expanding their service into a broader focus? Will httprint follow suit?

It’s too soon to say for sure but I can tell you that for the foreseeable future we are focusing exclusively on printing-related procurement. We believe that this industry is big enough, and complex enough to keep us busy for quite some time. We’re happy to see some of the competitors looking elsewhere and I think that‘s a reflection of them being admittedly more software companies than printing companies and have been surprised to find some of the complexities and nuances of this industry not 100% answered by a software solution alone.

You mentioned that httprint would examine acquisitions as part of a growth strategy. What would you look for?

Sales, accounts, suppliers, people, geographic coverage, technology, relationships, -preferably all of the above. The PrintConnect acquisition brought us sales, accounts, people, geographic coverage, technology and relationships. It also sends a signal that we intend to take a leadership role in this space.

Explain your revenue release from earlier this month. Because other companies have reported revenue in terms of print jobs running through their system - some have been confused about your success. When you report revenue, is it money you receive for services httprint actually performs?

Our revenues come from a combination of sources – hourly consulting fees, license fees, transaction fees - although we no longer have a transaction fee, these are from older accounts; also, in these instances we only recognize the transaction fee as revenue, not the "long" dollar, - mark-ups on work that we manage for our customers on an out-sourced basis, design fees and revenue shares.

Because we have a unique blend of products and services we will never report revenue in the same way as the others that are "in our space." Httprint is the only company providing ecommerce and professional services and therefore simply reporting jobs through the system would be an incomplete picture.

How many people do you have in Europe and how much does the region contribute in terms of revenue?

We have recently added to our UK presence where we have our European headquarters and about 30 people with a new site just outside of Hamburg, Germany. While there is only a small staff there, currently they are making excellent progress and we have offices large enough to get to the same size as London. We also have a small presence in Switzerland. We will probably open in some of the other countries this year such as France and Italy but we are in no rush and will let opportunity dictate our expansion. We should have some exciting announcements out of Europe in the next couple of weeks. We have an excellent team over there and roughly 50% of our worldwide sales are already from Europe.

Even with some consolidation, there are still many options for a print buyer? How do you separate httprint from others?

I think the fact that we have a full service approach is disarming to print buyers and printers alike. We also don’t have a transaction fee which caused a lot of controversy in the early days. Our print consultants are very helpful in determining an ROI for our prospective clients and our production managers are very helpful in projects that don’t necessarily apply to an ecommerce solution, at least not yet. This gives our customers a one-stop solution, which has proven to be appealing and a key differentiator.

In terms of volume, what do your reps look for in a prospect?

Our customers buy a lot of print. When I say a lot I mean usually a minimum of $5 million annually. This would typically mean an enterprise client, an agency or a rapidly growing company. These will be the early adopters of ecommerce because the savings are more readily apparent to them. Also, our clients are attracted to our outsourcing services when their workloads are very cyclical or if they lack expertise in a particular area. They can avoid hiring and firing and focus on their core competencies.

When does httprint anticipate a profit?

End of third quarter – this year.

With so much uncertainty in the e-commerce space, should prospects examine financial data of a company before entering into a long-term contract?

We have sufficient funding to take us to cash flow break-even and have recently received another capital infusion. With our traction we are seen as one of the few blades of grass emerging after a forest fire. We have had no layoffs and we are on plan. We will be around for the long haul. We have no problem with that. I think customers making this type of commitment should have confidence that their supplier partner is a viable going concern.

Explain the "after sale" relationship and educational process prospects can expect when signing up with httprint.

We already offer extensive training to our clients and one of the most important things we do is to help them understand where they are spending their money and where the potential areas of savings are, before implementing an ecommerce solution. Companies don’t have time to figure that out for the most part and as you know print is often a large budget item. Savings can be dramatic. Most of our consultants and production managers are expert in their respective fields but we support cross-training, seminars and conferences to advance your product knowledge. We don’t yet offer tuition programs but that is something I’d like to do in the future. Finally, our customers have access to our production experts via a live chat feature and over the telephone as well. We will also do research for our clients on a range of production related questions from paper, ink, presses, data, postage to all the new printing technologies. Our policy is to give the customer what they asked for as well as present them some options they may not have asked for. This not only adds value but builds our customer's knowledge base.

We understand that you will be going live in a few weeks with enhancements of your print management service. Can you give us a sneak peak of what features it will have?

For competitive reasons, I cannot disclose the new features other than to say it will deal with color management and has the potential to revolutionize the online printing sector.


Thank you Mark. We appreciate your time and thorough answers.